PrintI press play, and out struts a young Kathleen Hanna of Bikini Kill, swashbuckling to scratchy guitar chords in combat boots, a ripped peach-colored T-shirt, and a high ponytail. It proves to be just the right combo of sweet and tough—you know she’s a girl, but she could probably knock you over if she felt like it.
This was the face of women’s music 20 years ago. It was music that people gathered to listen to in parks, seedy dives, and the old CBGB (or, in this particular video homage to the “riot grrrl,” on the Capitol lawn). Fans came out to see bands like Bikini Kill, Bratmobile, and L7 play rain or shine, in tiny clubs or on parliamentary stages—and not because of their makeup or glitzy costumes (ahem, Lady Gaga). They came to champion some laws of their own, to support artists who sang publicly about issues like domestic abuse, rape, and sexuality. For these listeners, music was as much about female empowerment and refusing to keep feminism to themselves as it was about pleasure.
These were not artists who had short runs on the Billboard charts. Their songs had a “soul” worth keeping alive. They were written to start a riot. In her new book Girl Power: The Nineties Revolution in Music, Marisa Meltzer writes, “These women were reacting to issues within the relatively insular punk community, but also tapping into a larger cultural moment.” Feminism, Meltzer notes, faced a rather dark period in the ’80s, and the ’90s “riot grrrl” wave was a way for women to rekindle the liberation movement. In the early ’90s, feminism became about “embracing the individual, and acknowledging that feminism could be different for everyone,” Meltzer writes.
And indeed it was. For Hanna, feminism was singing politically charged lyrics like “You’re a big girl now, you’ve got no reason not to fight, you’ve got to know what they are, ’fore you can stand up for your rights.” This self-empowered, do-it-yourself attitude was also reflected in creative mediums like the fanzines “Bikini Kill” and “riot grrrl,” cut-and-paste booklets encouraging girls to hold activism meetings and organize and support women in music.
The making of the “riot grrrl” movement could easily be attributed to these fanzines as much as to the music itself. They were the Internet forums and blogs of the early ’90s, connecting people with common, pro-woman interests, underground forms of communication that directly reflected the music of the moment: self-made, self-published, and extremely personal. The zine “How to Start a Revolution,” available in Barnard’s own Zine Library, sassily states that the riot grrrl zines were “a revolution within a revolution. ... It was a reclaiming of the jigsaw youth their daddies, the media, and male tyranny took from them.” As zines were nonofficial publications with no financial backing, readers got the sense that by merely reading them, they were making a statement against mainstream society.
So where are zines today, and where is the voice of feminism in punk music? Jenna Freedman, a reference librarian at Barnard and head of the college’s zine collection, notes that they are still relevant to feminism today, but that music is no longer their sole focus. “I think they’re still an outlet for young feminists to support their politics and one another. But I don’t think they write much about music anymore. That was something that was really strong in the ’90s,” Freedman said.
Perhaps, then, the lack of feminist themes in today’s music is not a signal that feminism has been brushed aside, but rather, an indication that it has moved on to other media. Elizabeth Bernstein, a sociology professor at Barnard whose research has focused on gender and sexuality, notes that women often express their individuality in “whatever’s most marginal.” In the ’90s, “marginal” may have been riot grrrl punk rock, but today, there are revolutionary spaces beyond alternative music, “especially ones which are facilitated by new technologies,” Bernstein said. This can mean blogs, YouTube, and yes, Twitter.
I’m not saying that the voice of women in music is now necessarily “dead.” That would be far too dramatic of a statement, and it is not true by any means. Rather, fans can help revive feminist discussion in music by seeking out music that doesn’t just sound catchy, but inspires serious thought and action. With the turn of the 21st century, there is perhaps a misconception that women have already fought for equality.
“Women aren’t as concerned about their image as feminists as they used to be. They think it’s a past issue. They’re more confident than they used to be, even though the issue may still be there,” Barnard first-year Kiran Stallone said.
Yet, today’s listener doesn’t have to look far to find female individuality close to home. The city is home based to a host of women artists like M.I.A., Santigold, and Karen O of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs—women who, while not carrying the “riot grrrl” brand, all have distinct styles of their own. Growing up in Sri Lanka, M.I.A. witnessed political unrest daily as a child, and the theme of revolution continues to be a strong thread in her lyrics and her multicolored, camo-inspired outfits. Karen O appears to share Kathleen Hanna’s penchant for ripped clothing and lyrics like “You ain’t a baby, no more baby, you ain’t no bigger than before, baby, I’ll rub that cheap black off your lips, baby” that beg for a second listening.
In 2010, it appears that girl power is alive and arguably well, if not somewhat muted by the extravagance of more mainstream pop. Where the riot grrrls once made their presence known through a battle cry, today’s fans of female-powered music may be left to search a little harder.